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There it was. What looked like the biggest storm in months coming straight toward our little piece of land. Land that had just been drilled to receive re rod and concrete. We had had several months of completely dry weather during which time we were waiting for an approved blueprint. That document has arrive but along with it the rainy season is coming too. In fact this morning as I walked toward the construction site the wind was in my face. The clouds were there. Yet it seemed that they were moving to the right and away from our work. It would have made a cool story. Angry clouds and nary a drop on the postage stamp work site. As I looked at those ominous clouds I began to sing the old song, “I the God of wind and fire”. It wasn't until after the downpour that I discovered that I had misquoted the lyrics to that 1981 Daniel L. Schutte song, Here Am I Lord . In that song it isn't until the 5th verse that the following is proclaimed: I, the Lord of wind and flame , I will se...

How do music programs seem to go from a couple of tooting horns to a full blown orchestra overnight? I sort of saw it happen at First Baptist Church of Lake Orion and now I am seeing it happen at Igreja Batista da Fé in Sorocaba, Brazil! It is an amazing phenomena. I need to put my Lake Orion experience into a missionary perspective. By that I mean, I need to remind the average person about what happens in missionary life. Missionary life (ML) is different that normal life, if you have a definition for normal life I’d like to hear it. Anyway, ML is different than normal life. ML runs in three to four year spurts. Here is how it works. A missionary family leaves normal life (NL) and goes into a sort of Twilight Zone. In the TZ, NL becomes ML. By that I mean NL, is where everything sort of runs together into a birth to death scenario. Not much out of the ordinary changes. You have the same friends, house, church and work. You have your daily stuff you do and you get used to it all. There...

I don't think that I would. But I often do. I read the story of the three Hebrew children just now. You talk about courage. These guys were amazing. They were given one chance to bow. It would have been easy to double over and avoid the hassle of being toasted. They didn't. They were then brought before one of the wickedest and most fierce kings that history has ever produced. Nose to nose with Nebuchadnezzar they basically say, “We don't even have to answer your questions! Our God is able to deliver us. But even if He doesn't we will not bow!” That was the definitive moment. The Bible says that all of a sudden Nebuchadnezzar’s visage changed. Can't you see it. He became a raving maniac. He ruled the world and what he said was what happened. He was an egomaniac. He had been told that the kingdom in his dream represented by the Gold head was his and it had literally gone to his head. Now he wanted everyone to bow in admission to the fact. These men had made up their ...

Time plods on. It stops for only God. It doesn't change velocity it just never stops. Have you noticed? Some think that time drags and others that it speeds. I hear people say, “Where did the time go?” and others, “Won't this ever end?!” And it is funny because these two comments might come from people who are side by side. Time, however, is the same. It was not invented to run or drag. It was invented to mark days, weeks, months and years. I doubt that Adam, before sin entered the picture, ever saw a watch. He didn't need one. He knew his responsibilities. He knew where and when he needed to be. He knew when to rest and eat and play. He too had no care about the passing of time because he wasn't about to die. God had created him to live! Time began to make a significant difference when Adam and Eve disobeyed God. After that act time became a death watch. The ticking of the clock began to mark the years, months and seconds until their death. Whether they cared about it ...

"Go to the Ant Thou Sluggard" Proverbs 6.6 Why am I so intrigued by lists? I see an article with a title like, "20 ways to leave your lover" and I want to know more about what the guy or girl is talking about. Not that I want to leave MY lover, by the way! If it said "How to leave your wife!" I'd be appalled and wouldn't give it a second glance. Why are those numbers in titles so attractive? What is it about a curt list that grabs my attention? I think that I know. I want a shortcut. I am lazy. I need to succeed and I want to get there the comfortable way. I don't want to have to struggle to write a novel, earn more money or become a good father or husband. I want those ten easy steps. To get anything worthwhile in this life takes work. Building a reputation is a lifetime pursuit. However, I don't want to spend a lifetime. Thus the lists grab my fancy. It is much more exciting to think that I can become an award-winning author by followin...

750 words day 2 Lists Why am I so intrigued by lists? I see an article with a title like, "20 ways to leave your lover" and I want to know more about what the guy or girl is talking about. Not that I want to leave MY lover, by the way! If it said "How to leave your wife!" I'd be appalled and wouldn't give it a second glance. Why are those numbers in titles so attractive? What is it about a curt list that grabs my attention? I think that I know. I want a shortcut. I am lazy. I need to succeed and I want to get there the comfortable way. I don't want to have to struggle to write a novel, earn more money or become a good father or husband. I want those ten easy steps. To get anything worthwhile in this life takes work. Building a reputation is a lifetime pursuit. However, I don't want to spend a lifetime. Thus the lists grab my fancy. It is much more exciting to think that I can become an award-winning author by following these "Five simple steps...

What is your routine? Do you get used to doing what you do? Do you look forward to doing it or is it what you might call a rut? Whatever the case, your life has certain activities that you do regularly that you don't even think about. It is your routine. Have you ever thought about writing about your routine life? Do you think that anyone would want to read about what you do? I can see it now, "I got up at 5:00 this morning and got ready for work. I had to jump the car but finally got it going. Got to work just in time to jump into my coveralls. "I painted trucks from 6:00 until 8:00 and took a break. Started painting again at 8:28 and went until 10:00. Lunched from 10:00 until 10:30. Started painting again." Sounds boring doesn't it? Sometimes it was. I know because that was MY life for twenty-two years! However, that wasn't all of what I did. I had other activities too. I had a life after work. I got home everyday at around 3...

Off the top of my head 750 number 1. Well, here I sit in my undies wondering what to write about. It has been awhile since I've written on a regular basis and I miss it. I miss it and I don't miss it. I set a goal, or rather a New Years resolution a couple of years ago, of writing a daily devotional. During that year I put out two hundred and twelve. That was impressive for me. I remember years ago I wrote in my scribble pad, "I want to write a message a day for five days!" And I did. I thought that THAT was sensational! So, you can imagine how IMPRESSED I was with two hundred and twelve devos. My goal that year was three hundred and sixty five. So, I actually fell short of my goal by a long shot. Cutting myself some slack. As I so often like to do, I realize that 212 wasn't a bad effort. However, since that year I have never gotten back on the writing trial. I believe that I want to write. I think that I need to write. I even consider myself a writer. I jus...

I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content . Philippians  4.11 This was Paul’s exhortation to the believers in Philippi. Interestingly enough he wrote it from a Roman prison, probably chained to a Roman soldier. It wouldn’t have been the easiest place to be content. The English sentence, as you can see, is only twelve words long but this tiny lesson speaks volumes. I have learned –  It goes without saying (though here I go) that Paul had an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. That relationship had not kept him from sadness, hurt, danger, or death. But it had helped him to understand that dealing with difficulties was a learned skill. We have all heard of the school of hard knocks. Paul understood that those knocks came from a divine source, the hand of his all loving Father. Discovering the mind of Christ will take eternity. Learning how to deal with difficulty in my own walk is a daily application of the knocks that He sends my way. ...

When I was a kid my family went to Cooperstown New York and visited the baseball Hall of Fame. I don't remember much about the visit except that there were a lot of bronze statues and busts of a lot of unknown (to me) players from the early 20th Century. Getting into the baseball Hall of Fame is expensive. It costs you a lifetime of hard work and dedication. Thousands of professionals have played the game but few make it into the hallowed halls at Cooperstown. Hebrews chapter eleven is the Hall of Fame in the Bible. Each one named there has a special place in the history of what God has done and is doing through faith. Verse thirteen is the amazing result of all of this faith! These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. These men and women were characterized by faith to the point of death. They were promised things which they nev...

Note that I took the picture from outside! We married years ago and moved into our dream house. It was our first home and though tiny, it was ours! I think that it had about 900 square feet of living space. We called it cozy. Through the years our definition of cozy changed and our house size increased to accommodate that new standard. We never got really big but we had space for most of our stuff. When we moved to Brazil we experienced culture shock. The houses here are crammed together with common walls and seemingly no room to stretch. Your neighbor sneezes and you yell “Health”, which is the Brazilian version of “Bless you” or whatever you say when someone sneezes. Our square footage diminished somewhat but we again had room for most of our stuff. In our most recent move, however, our space has diminished significantly. I think that there is about 600 square feet. Cozy? Yeah. Especially on really hot days. A week ago we started something new at church. We had been taking a smal...